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Former guerrilla commander Agim Ceku was nominated as Kosovo prime minister on Wednesday after Bajram Kosumi bowed to domestic and international pressure to resign.

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commondreams, july 2000:

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Ceku refined his brutality as a general in the US-backed Croatian Army during the Balkan war and was trained by Military Professional Resources Inc., a private paramilitary firm founded in 1987 and based in Alexandria, Virginia with former high-ranking US generals and NATO officials on its board. These officers include the former Commanders in Chief of the US Army in Europe and US Central Command, the Supreme Allied Commander-Atlantic and the former US Representative to the NATO Military Committee. In 1994, armed with a contract authorized by the Clinton Administration, MPRI officially began to train Croatian forces.

Just months after MPRI arrived on the scene, Croatian forces carried out the notorious Operation Storm. In a brutal four-day blitzkrieg in 1995, these forces expelled some 200,000 Serbs from the Krajina region of Croatia after their villages were mercilessly shelled. Jane's Defense Weekly reported that Ceku was "one of the key planners" of the operation that the New York Times called "the largest single 'ethnic cleansing' of the war.

War crimes investigators at the Hague concluded, "In a widespread and systematic manner, Croatian troops committed murder and other inhumane acts upon and against Croatian Serbs." Investigators also documented deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian buildings, along with summary executions, as Croatian forces "committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law."

The US has refused to cooperate in the investigation and despite the fact that MPRI's members are almost exclusively ex-US military, information on its operations are unavailable to the public because it is a private corporation.

The Spokeswoman for the UN Mission in Kosovo Susan Manuel says the UN is "aware" of Gen. Ceku's history and the accusations against him but placed him at the head of the KPC "because he was the leader of the KLA when we arrived, and he wanted to contribute to the transformation of the KLA to a constructive force for the future of Kosovo." This configuration is largely the work of Washington.

At nearly every turn in the UN/NATO negotiations with the KLA over their role in the "new" Kosovo, American officials swooped in to appease Gen. Ceku and his KLA cronies by making changes to key principles to agreements. In one instance when NATO negotiators were at a standstill with the KLA over its role in the future administration of Kosovo, then-State Department spokesperson James Rubin came to the group's rescue, adding a clause that said, "special consideration should be given to current KLA members to participate in the administration and police force of Kosovo in exchange for the help the KLA provided to NATO during its air campaign."

It therefore comes as no surprise that upon word that Ceku may be under investigation for war crimes, US officials told reporters that any indictment of Ceku would be "sealed" and kept from the public.

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"Kosovo has its democratic institutions and has the right to decide about its prime minister," UN administration spokesman Neeraj Singh said.

Ceku, the former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, was made Kosovo's prime minister-designate last week.

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UN Won't Block Ceku's Bid To Become Kosovo's Premier

[ 07 March 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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A former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrilla leader, Ceku was also an officer in the Yugoslav National Army when the war in Croatia broke out in 1991, and he joined the Croatian Army to fight against rebel Serbs there. He allegedly helped plan Operation Storm, the four-day offensive in 1995 that drove Serbs from Croatia.

Ceku retired from the Croatian Army in the late 1990s and became the KLA's chief of staff in 1999, as the NATO air war against Serbia raged. After the war, he remained in uniform, but helped disband the KLA by ushering the former fighters into the KPC.

But his military history rankles Serbs both here and in Serbia to the north. A Serbian court indicted Ceku in 2002 for war crimes against Serbs during Operation Storm; the same year, another court convicted him in absentia for genocide against Serbs in Kosovo. Such court decisions, however, don't apply in UN-administered Kosovo. Sources here say it's highly unlikely that Ceku will be arrested now - and his background may even work to the Albanians' advantage as talks loom.

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